


How to Make an Antichrist

by Varjo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Divergence, Childbirth, F/M, Horror, Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, In Vitro Fertilization, Minor Violence, Nazis, Pregnancy, Satanism, Short Stories, mild animal cruelty, tacked-on bonus chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25725877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varjo/pseuds/Varjo
Summary: This is a collection of four short stories, detailing possibilities of how an Antichrist baby might come to be born, mostly because I was wondering about Adam's biological mother while everybody was in terror of his father. Plus, here is a little bonus chapter in the end, poking fun at how the other side might have gone about handling Virgin Mary and her pregnancy.
Relationships: Lilith/Satan | Lucifer (Good Omens)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 5





	1. The One-Man-Show-Method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lucifer makes an effort to be vaguely female (or: feminine-shaped) and goes about sending out his Antichrist son all by himself.  
> Point of view character: Mr. Glozier (mostly), Satan. Therefore: beware of Nazism. I wish to stress Mr. Glozier's thoughts are by no means mine.

The end of days was nigh, and one individual was especially aggravated by it: Lucifer.

They called him Satan, even though that was admittedly a rather broad term. By some way of speaking, every one of his companions was a ‘satan’ – an adversary.

Be that as it may, the end times neared rapidly, and soon, no-one would worry about who had been called what these days. The mere idea of wiping the ineffable smile from the smug, invisible face of the Almighty was one of the main reasons why Lucifer underwent all that strain and hadn’t in deepest anger and frustration thrown in the towel and called it a hellish day halfway along.

It was puzzling to him, experiencing this, that any species of living being had ever produced more than one generation at all… after some time one would assume they’d learn. But well, one thing after the other. Right now the Morningstar was mostly concerned with making the remaining months as bearable as possible. In this respect it was profitable to have some dispensable foot soldiers at your disposal.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Glozier had had to learn the hard way that Heaven and Hell were a business – a rock-hard business – and that they, the simple sinners, were roughly equal to unpaid interns in it. (Not that he knew unpaid internships from his lifetime; back then, students had revolted or fornicated in their free time. Doing anything useful like further the causes of the Reich hadn’t even remotely occurred to them. Useless, mutinous riffraff.) It had been challenging enough to come to terms with being dead… being forced into this position where you were under everyone’s heel and cheerfully exploited on top of that hadn’t been remotely as easy to accept. While even the lowest-ranking demons had the right to defend themselves, to refuse, or to delegate if they were given undignified or dull tasks, every refusal, even every protest, of a simple sinner like him was met at best with a menacing glance, at worst with a visit to the torture chambers.

Both Mr. Glozier and his congenial partner, Mr. Harmony, and certainly Fräulein Kleinschmidt too, had tried to fight back against the demons at first. They had threatened that the Führer would receive report of them and their abysmal treatment of German soldiers and that it wouldn’t be long until every last demon in this soggy hole was ground under the Führer’s heel. Didn’t the captors know that Glozier, Harmony, and Kleinschmidt were under the protection of the leader of the greatest empire the world had ever seen? The reactions had ranged from dull lack of comprehension to shrill laughter and physical abuse; so yes, one could say that Mr. Glozier had grown used to his servitude.

The demons frightened him; he avoided them as best as he could, even now that he was on his way to the lowest chambers of this place. Even taking all of this into consideration, however, he had imagined Hell to be somehow different. Warmer. Fierier. Reality was no less painful, but… in a different way.

The sinner had been sent to Earth with a chore; due to some undisclosed reason he was to gather food – chocolate, fruit, bread, vegetables, salted potato slices, a piece of dough smeared with tomato sauce and covered in various toppings which was apparently called a ‘pizza’, and tons of raw meat – and to carry it into Hell before it spoiled, and to carry it through Hell without it being contaminated.  
On his short visit to the surface Mr. Glozier had had to see the appalling state of things: people of different colours and builds and creeds were intermingling everywhere; the Jews lived and had a state of their own where they had the gall to antagonize people; even other destructive elements were irreverent enough to speak up and block streets, if not whole cities, for hours on end. There were even states run by women! Looking at it in this way, he had reflected upon re-entering Hell, maybe it had been a good thing that this bomb had torn him apart when it did. The mere idea of having to be alive under these circumstances made him heave. Better to be where he was, and how he was, haphazardly stitched together with thread and metal clamps after the impact (the first look into a mirror down here had almost given him a heart attack) but with his world view halfway intact.

Rule of the fittest was very alive down here. He could depend on that, and somehow, it reassured him.

Mr. Glozier felt himself get more and more disquieted the further he descended into the Pit; the good thing was that Hell was less populated the deeper he ventured and that he had to pay less attention to not stepping onto tails, claws, tentacles or other stray body parts which would be promptly followed by aggressive hissing, screeching or growling or even an outright attack. Ligur, the demon under whose command Glozier had found himself (A dark-skinned one, too! The Führer would have flayed him alive had he within his reach dared to boss an Aryan around.), had shown him a sigil and told him to not stop his descent until he saw that symbol on a door. This door would be where he should report and deliver his load.

That door was taller than he and eldritch black, overgrown with something that uncannily resembled mould or a rash but was too solid and jagged to be mould or a rash. And could wood even get rashes? Additionally, it appeared to be very alive. At least, it crept around with nauseating, crawling-clicking, scraping sounds, and the activities of the toothy holes atop the little bumps and elevations produced a unnaturally moist rasping and grating… the symbol Mr. Glozier was looking for was emblazoned between these little critters (if they were critters at all) in an unnervingly glowing hue of blood red.

Mr. Glozier cleared his throat.

A rasping and inquisitive squeak rang from the door blade – immaterial and yet so meaningful.

“I am… the sinner Glozier,” he announced himself, constantly slurping and gulping; the cuts and tears remaining in his messily mended flesh made speaking rather a complicated venture. His tongue, like many of the open sores he retained, bled incessantly, and several of his teeth had been lost that day. It was a small miracle that both eyes, ears and all ten fingers and toes had been retrieved – though it was moderately possible that some of the body parts he was now assembled of had previously belonged to Mr. Harmony or Fräulein Kleinschmidt.

“And I… bring… what the Lord requested.”

The growth on the door started moving – scratching, bubbling, swarming, nauseating – and thus revealed a doorknob. Mr. Glozier made to grab it as the door creaked open by itself and a snarling, smoky-cranky voice addressed him from within, “Come in, you filthy vermin, I have been waiting for much too long. This thing will be the end of me…”

Mr. Glozier inhaled the stale, musty atmosphere of the Pit before he mustered the courage to obey. After all he couldn’t possibly anticipate what was to come… it could be over any second.

The chamber was vast, humid and messy like the rest of Hell and covered, walls as well as furniture, with indiscernible substances that might or might not have been alive. It was windowless and illuminated by sterile white lamps; but nothing of this was what commanded Mr. Glozier’s attention. What caught his eye, made them enlarge to nearly twice their size, and almost made him drop his load onto the uneven floor was the creature resting on a couch in the back of the room. The creature was thrice as high as the highest building Glozier had ever seen and twice as wide, with bright red skin, donning a horn growth reminiscent of a crown around his forehead and a pair of voluminous, perforated wings on his back. His abdomen was epicyclically round and seemed swollen, and one of his clawed hands rested on it, absent-mindedly stroking and massaging the skin. Mr. Glozier knew without fail who this was and felt the impulse to sink to his knees; yet the realization that hit him like a thunderclap immediately after he internalized the demon’s identity made him freeze in place.

That realization was, ‘Pregnant – he is pregnant.’

The prince of Hell… he was to deliver a baby.

Impossible!

If the Führer had known this. In all the years of their occult research they never even found a hint…

Mr. Glozier gargled – the Adversary finally turned toward him, his face broad, with a small flat nose, little beady eyes, pointy ears and a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. “Still standing there gaping, sinner?” he thundered down onto Mr. Glozier who, in a reflex, pulled his head between his shoulders as if that had any chance of protecting him, “Let me see what you brought! If I don’t appease that thing any time soon, it will resort to eating me from inside out.”

Mechanically, almost without his direct intervention, the sinner’s legs started to move; he staggered over to Satan to prepare his feast on the low table next to his bed. “It is… everything is there, You… Your Inf…fernal Lordship,” he gushed, “just like you…”

“Better for you, too,” Satan growled, gathering half of the supplies in one hand, squeezing them into an indefinable, heterogeneous pulp and pushing it into his mouth. It didn’t even seem to bother him that some of the food was wrapped in plastic or came in cardboard boxes. Mr. Glozier could only gape in revolted fascination; his gaze wandered back and forth between the Prince of Hell’s grinding jaws and his protruding abdomen, shiny, round, and if he concentrated for long enough, he thought he could make out movements underneath.

A sound of helpless abhorrence escaped him, and he jerked back.

“What is it, now?” Lucifer snapped, “I didn’t grant you the right to stay. What do you think you’re doing, standing in my quarters and gawking at me like a village idiot? If you want to stay, make yourself useful and massage my feet… they’re all swollen, all varicose veins, I feel like a veritable hag…”

Mr. Glozier stammered, shaking his head. “Not possible,” he muttered, “That… you can’t, it’s im… impossible… you cannot…”

Could not? The expression on Lucifer’s features grew cold as he sat up to have the sinner approach. “Go ahead,” he grunted, and the temperature in the room rose sharply, “come closer, sinner. Nothing will happen to you that you don’t deserve.”

Reluctantly, but unable to defend himself, Mr. Glozier advanced a few steps and, gulping uneasily, stared straight into the Morningstar’s hellfire-filled eyeballs. “I will teach you, pathetic sinner,” grumbled the devil, leaning on one elbow and reaching for Glozier with the other arm, “what it means to reckon you can tell the Morningstar what he can and cannot do…” 

His fingers found Mr. Glozier’s face on both sides – tested briefly – and squeezed.

There was a sound like a watermelon being crushed; braces bent, seams tore, remaining teeth were crushed, cartilage, jaw and eyes shifted, and the pain was unbearable. Mr. Glozier wished he could die; but that was already behind him, and this tattered, abused body had to serve him for eternity. He was not even allowed a scream; his vocal tract no longer served its purpose.

“A flat head is what you are,” growled Lucifer before sinking back onto the couch, arms stretched behind his head, “now everyone who meets you will know. You may state your gratitude… then you are discharged.”

Mr. Glozier wanted to obey, but nothing more than spitting and bubbling came out of his wrecked mouth. For Lucifer it seemed to be enough, though; with a magnanimous wave he dismissed the sinner.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At Lucifer’s own request he gave birth by himself; however, the operators of Hell had to deal with several spirited calls from the Archangels, demanding to know what that roar was that made the building shake to the highest level. Michael was particularly persistent; she threatened that there would be no mercy for anything that opposed her if Hell would keep bothering them any longer.

But finally, after half a day’s struggle, Lucifer cradled a howling new-born in his arms who – to the surprise of no-one – was his father’s spitting image. He even had the same little crown-like horn growth around his forehead.

Hastur and Ligur, equipped with a wicker basket and full of resolve, entered the Morningstar’s quarters only hours later; Lucifer still sat on the edge of his couch, drenched in sweat, holding the boy in his arms. “Isn’t he gorgeous?” he asked his servants, holding out the little one who was screaming, squirming and kicking his arms, legs and wings, “His father’s very mirror image. Already begun his life by spoiling my day – I ache all over – a promising start. I cannot wait for the day he will rise from the charred remains of Earth…”

Hastur and Ligur were silent like good subordinates. But their faces expressed the same enthusiasm.

All that was missing now was camouflage…

“Find the demon Crowley,” Lucifer instructed his agents as he put a glamour over the boy that made him look like a normal human child. He shrank to a fraction of its original size; Lucifer could easily carry him in one palm. “He has to be somewhere around the British Isles. Give him the Antichrist and send him to St. Beryl’s, home to some of our loyal nuns. Frighten him a little in any case… he mustn’t be allowed to blunder here. After all, it’s about our domination.” 

With a claw, he waved the demons closer; Hastur alone stepped forward and opened the basket in which Lucifer placed his descendant with a smile full of fatherly pride. 

“Tell him if he bends one single hair on my son’s body, I will joyfully tear him into at least seven pieces and have each one tortured in a different way.”

“It would be my pleasure to tell the flash bastard that,” Hastur replied with a smirk.

“Let’s just do it – we can certainly think of something that the bastard has done to deserve it,” Ligur suggested, but Lucifer raised his clawed hand defensively. 

“We still need him… for this. I cannot deny though that once he has served his purpose, his screams would be music to my ears. Now go, and see to it that everything runs smoothly… you know that you will face the same fate if you fail.”

“Ave Satanas,” Ligur said instead of an answer, and Hastur repeated the leave-taking.

Delightful, thought Lucifer as he let his demons retire and leaned back, his eyes closed in a tranquil way. Yes, brilliant. It would not be long now before all that was left of this world was a handful of dust that he would personally scatter into space.

Victory was imminent.


	2. The Made-in-Hell-Method - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lucifer drafts his lover Lilith into being the Antichrist's mother, and one airbase scene will Play out slightly differently than usual.
> 
> Point-of-view-characters: Lilith, then Dagon, then Adam Young.

Lilith threw her head back; her horns bumped against Lucifer’s, and her resounding cry slowly turned into thin laughter and finally a contented, cat-like purr. Lucifer gasped at her ear, his breath was hot and foul, and she knew that he had shared her ecstasy to its full extent. She pressed her back against Lucifer’s stomach, and he lovingly bit the back of her neck which she greedily arched toward his teeth. Sweat burned in the sores and scratches they had inflicted on each other; Lucifer’s weight, his breath and body heat against her skin were sublime, and the feel of his teeth against her pulse was exquisite.

Something was different; Lilith couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something was out of the ordinary this time around.

After a few breaths Lucifer slid off her body, his hand resting in the small of her back and digging his fingernails under her skin; Lilith turned her head to face him as he said, “I hate you, sinner”.

“Not the way I hate you, fallen one,” she replied with a sly grin. Her hand found his throat, squeezing playfully; something twitched in Lucifer’s face. Did he feel it as well? That something was different?  
It was probably nothing.

“You stink,” she murmured, resting her horned crown against his.

“And you’re weak,” he countered, “I didn’t even bleed properly as you bit my nose.”

“Only because your unwashed flesh tastes like old tires.”

“Hm… might be. It is quite possible that my flesh and blood would have poisoned you from within.”

Lilith chuckled and closed her eyes, sliding her leg between his. Lucifer said the most wonderful things.

“Now that we have already mentioned it…”

There was a pause. Lilith opened her eyes and stared into her lover’s mischievous face.

“… what would you say to giving birth to the Antichrist in nine months’ time?”

At first the demoness could merely stare. Then a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth; a gentle chuckle escaped her throat; then she rolled onto her back and laughed out loud. “Hear yourself talk, Lucifer, my Lord,” she said in amusement, “how long have we been sharing a bed? Centuries? Millennia? And how many children have I birthed?” 

She paused, grinning at Lucifer like a teacher who gave a small child an arithmetic task that was far too simple for him. You know it perfectly well; we have been over this so often. Come on. Say it.

“None.” She chuckled again. “Neither yours nor anyone else’s. Apart from the fact that I am sterile like the desert and no matter how much I would earnestly be thrilled to give birth to the Antichrist… I am a demon, Lucifer, my Lord… I would be a miserable mother.”

“I didn’t tell you to bring him up.” Lilith started because Lucifer sounded unusually solemn. “All I want is having you be the Antichrist’s mother – you, my chosen one, the first rebel. You who next to me were the first to question creation…” he stretched to violently grasp her jaw, but gently force her to look at him and stroke her lips and chin with sharp claws. “… you ought to be by my side when we destroy everything, and it should be our child, our son, who ushers in our revenge.”

Coldness flooded Lilith’s bones, and she sat up, eluding Lucifer who was still unexpectedly and unusually grave. “As tempting as that may sound,” she murmured, spreading her hands, “it doesn't make me any more fertile…”

“What if I told you the problem wasn’t yours?”

Pause. Lilith bit her lower lip; her eyes flashed.

“It is given to me,” Lucifer continued, and he raised one claw to illustrate, “to father one son, and only one, when the time has come, with human or demon: the Antichrist, the destroyer, the angel of the pit, the devourer of worlds. It is written. And it happens…” his glance grew piercing, and Lilith felt her desire to fulfil this request getting more and more pressing, “… it so happens that I want you to be the one who carries this chaos and the promise of destruction and war into the world.”

“But, but all the others…” she stammered, and Lucifer pursed his lips.

“Did you really expect me to allow the chosen mother of the Antichrist to taint herself, and him, by less remarkable offspring?” he asked in disdain. “No, Lilith. You are fated to bear the Antichrist – a child most extraordinary and most frightful. You deserve to bring forth only the best – the worst – and whose offspring could even aspire to compare to the eater of worlds? So I prevented you from conceiving from anybody but me – right now, right here.”

And wouldn’t it be wonderful? Wouldn’t it be an honour – not just for herself, as a woman, as a monarch of Hell, but also as a representative of all subordinates, as much as she liked to kick and punch them for her own delectation? Lilith felt excitement tingle in her bones, felt herself be zealous to agree: yes, yes, yes, I offer myself, my body, make me and what I can bring forth a tool of our victory. Yes, I want to carry your son, our son, so it is written, so it shall be, for our glory.

She tensed, shivered a little. Lilith had never before felt inadequate, unable to achieve what she wanted with all black heart… and now? Lucifer watched her from below, calculating, and she could hardly control the impulse to throw him on his back and straddle him. She wanted to choke him, wanted to hear him groan, desired the pain in her own spine as well, desired their never-ending struggle and yet knew that this time she had to exercise restraint. “What do I have to do?” she asked, her voice small and strained, her throat obstructed.

Lucifer shook his head. “Nothing,” he explained, “this conversation was more about your… information than anything else. It has already been wrought… he is already growing inside you.” Speaking thus, he put his hand on Lilith’s belly, and she stared at him, her emotions veering from unbelieving to angry to wildly determined and royally proud. “A little devilish miracle I have allowed myself.”

“You’re a damn bastard to treat a woman like that,” she breathed.

Lucifer shrugged and grinned broadly. “What exactly did you expect?”

Lilith sighed and chewed on her lower lip. “Kiss me, bastard.”

“Then come to me, sinner.”

She did.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the next few weeks and months, Dagon never left Lilith’s side. The loyal, cruel soul had set herself the task of looking after the Antichrist’s mother the moment she received the message: of removing all stress and annoyance and fulfilling every wish, ideally a week before that wish would take root in Lilith’s mind. She brought food, clothing, entertainment and some dispensable scum when Lilith desired to drink blood and tear flesh from bones. She washed and groomed Lilith’s body and kept her mind restless with conversations. She endured the mood swings and fits of anger of the pregnant woman, was often herself the one who sacrificed blood to Hell’s empress, and she suffered with a smile. She humbled herself at Lilith’s feet should the empress desire it and did it with satisfaction and zeal. Together the demonesses concocted ecstatic visions of the day the Antichrist would finally dismember the world and help the inhabitants of Hell achieve their well-deserved freedom and domination over all of creation.

She would do anything to keep mother and child healthy and happy.

Dagon was suspicious even of Lucifer, which was why she withdrew into the shadows should the Morningstar deign to visit his mistress, but nevertheless kept watching him maliciously, vowing to repay every misstep on his own body. Of course, she was perfectly aware she couldn’t injure the first fallen angel… but you had to stick to your principles, and now that she had sworn on her discorporated soul that no misfortune should befall the Lady and her offspring, and be it the mildest discomfort, she would defend this oath from everyone, including Lucifer.

After all, loyalty was an extremely rare commodity down here…

The demoness was drenched in sweat, cut up, beaten and strained, but almost euphoric as, after she and the Lady had spent half a day behind closed doors, she hurried through the corridors of Hell to find the contact men Hastur and Ligur. “The time has come,” she let them know portentously upon finally running into them, “the Lady is expecting you in her quarters within two hours at the latest. Bring a basket.” She didn’t wait for her colleagues to confirm; Dagon felt queasy every moment that Lilith and the infant were without her. Someone had to protect them… the mother was weakened from childbirth and the new-born was defenceless. 

Yet.

As she returned to Lilith’s quarters, Dagon saw her fears come true; Lucifer sat next to the fatigued mother on the still rumpled and bloodstained bed and looked over her shoulder at the new-born Antichrist. She greeted respectfully and bowed; the Morningstar barely acknowledged her.

The baby – the Antichrist, the angel of the Pit, devourer of the worlds – was Lilith’s spitting image facially while taking after his father build-wise. He had a delicate little horn crown and a couple of cute little wings. He had also been born with a mouthful of small, needle-pointed teeth. Adorable, all in all. It was almost a shame, Dagon thought, to put a camouflage spell over him and send him to Earth. But this was the child’s glorious destiny…

Dagon took a seat at a respectful distance to watch the goings-on; everything was peaceful so far, nobody seemed to want to harm the child or have any orders for her. She was still there as Hastur and Ligur finally entered, donning floor-length worn coats and carrying a basket suitable for a human child, and as Lilith and Lucifer worked together to disguise the angel of the Pit. 

Dagon sighed almost wistfully as she watched the needle teeth disappear. But then, the boy had to somehow get along on Earth…


	3. The Made-In-Hell-Method - Part II

So now it was all up to him.

Adam was still restless and overwhelmed as the desert disappeared in favour of the airbase. The conversation with the angel and demon had done little more than confirm how terribly serious it was – how little he could afford to screw up. He was a little encouraged by seeing his friends again, Anathema and Newton and this strange older couple, but still: he was facing Satan.

His father…?

Deep down, Adam knew it wasn’t true. This creature could never be his father – and didn’t reality listen to what he believed and what he knew?

The ground shook.

The angel and demon’s grips grew loose around his hands.

“Step back,” he instructed them all without looking at them, all the while freeing his hands and stepping forward. The concrete they stood on opened up; it wouldn’t be long now, and Adam, though fear rumbled in his stomach, was unwilling to give up without a fight.

“Adam!” he heard Pepper scream, but it was as if there was a glass wall between them. He heard and understood her, but her voice was dull and distant in his ears. A glance back over his shoulder showed him that the angel, sword raised, had gathered Wensley, Brian and Pepper behind him, trying not to let Pepper dodge him and follow her friend while the demon was simply standing there, tense and showing teeth. Wensleydale had put a hand between his lips like a little boy and was biting on his fingernails; Brian was deadly pale and stood frozen.

“Stay where you are,” Adam murmured, turning back to the rapidly growing gap. He spoke softly but felt as if his voice could sweep over all of Tadfield. “Not a step further. This is… between him and me.”

You’re not my father, he ascertained while stopping and gathering strength. You never were.

It would be difficult to describe the eleven-year-old’s astonishment as not one figure peeled from the rain of stone, ash and dust that tumbled down from the bursting earth, but two. Both figures taller than anyone Adam had seen before, one beet-red, broad and muscular and with extensive, leathery but holey wings, the other also strong, but incomparably slimmer, wingless, and deathly pale. Muscles bulged all over their bodies. Their heads were strangely jagged on top, and their hands were clawed.

Adam could hear the demon gulping and groaning behind him. The angel expressed himself clearer, “Crowley – Crowley, what is the meaning of this? I thought Satan was coming, the boy’s father. Who is this second person with him? A bodyguard?”

“That…” the grinding of the demon’s teeth almost rendered his words inaudible, “… that will be his mother, I presume.”

“Mother?” Wensleydale looked up at the black-dressed adult in disbelief.

“Bullshit.” Pepper was condescending, as if she were talking to a primary school child and not even a particularly intelligent one. “Adam’s mom is safely home in Tad…”

In the meantime, both figures had emerged from the curtain of dust far enough for Adam to discern their faces; that of the male figure was broad and mean, somehow reminiscent of a bull, while that of the female figure displayed the beauty and deviousness of a striking snake. She had no nose, unusually pale skin and narrow, pure white eyes. It was all too easy to imagine small, pointed teeth and a split tongue lurking behind this lipless mouth…

“Yes, his… mother,” the demon grated, “may I… may I introduce, you might know Satan well, and here’s his… his lady ruler, Lilith.”

The angel gasped. “This here is what has become of poor Lilith!?”

“Crowley,” the Lady exclaimed with some kind of perverse, however affectionate joy, and the smile on her face looked as if lifted straight from a horror movie, “so nice to see you again… it’s been ages.”

“Oh, you… you know each other? Personally?” There was a strange tension in the angel’s voice.

The demon stammered a little before answering, “Well, you… you just run into people I guess… you just know people, you know, one snake person to another. One person who has left Eden and is making plans to cause a little mischief there to…”

“So it was she who instigated you to… to tempt Eve? Crowley!”

“You don’t think I could have thought of that myself, angel? You take me for that unimaginative?”

“I remember you as well,” Lilith interrupted, pointing to the angel, “Aziraphale, right? Guardian of the Eastern Gate. I remember how you tried to stop me, to force me back under your Almighty’s control.”

“It was, it is dangerous out there, I couldn’t just allow you to wander, unprotected and…” the angel defended himself.

“I’ve always managed very well without you,” the stranger murmured hostilely.

“SILENCE!” Satan’s roar made everyone present jump violently and concentrate on the essentials. Adam, too, pulled himself together, clenched his fists and frowned – he had to gather his senses about him, use his powers to exert as much pressure as he possibly could upon reality to separate all his ties to these monsters.

Earth shook again as Satan stomped towards him. Adam stood there, brave and still, trembling a little, but overcoming his fear and staring straight at the devil’s tiny, furious eyes. “You little shit,” growled Satan, “just wait until I come for you and teach you what it means to resist what is written…”

“You are not my father,” Adam attempted to ward him off. His voice shuddered.

Satan snorted. “Not your father,” he repeated, raising his clawed hand, “we’ll see about that as soon as I put you across my knee…”

“Now, now, Lucifer,” the woman, introduced by the red-haired demon as Lilith, suddenly interrupted and pushed past Satan, a clawed hand on his shoulder, “no, leave it be, take a few steps back and let me handle this. You cannot talk to a child like that…”

Adam’s attention shifted away from the broad, coarse bull face of his ‘father’ to focus on the gentle, fearsome snake face of his ‘mother’. Something tingled inside; Adam did his best to suffocate it. “You are not my mother,” he murmured, “Not you, you have never been there, I don’t even know you…”

Lucifer grabbed her arm as she tried to push past him, yanked her around roughly – but she didn’t seem to mind. Instead of fighting, she put her hand around the devil’s throat. “I’m not going to leave this battle to you,” he grunted.

“I was once human,” Lilith reminded him tenderly, “don’t forget that. And trust me, fallen one, I know how to deal with people. I will win this battle for us.”

Lilith – the serpent woman – shrank herself to human size with every step she approached, and next to Adam she crouched, putting her clawed hand through his hair and onto his neck. Adam’s lips tightened; uneasiness and fear intertwined inside him with the foreboding knowledge that the completion of his fate was imminent, was so close he could almost taste it. He just had to trust this woman and take her hand and get everything…

Get everything going again…

NO!

“Hello, Adam,” greeted the woman in a sweet voice, “that is what they called you, isn’t it, Adam? I am happy to finally get to know you.”

“You are not my mother,” Adam renewed his defence, hating himself for how weak he sounded. He could hear his friends breathing in the background, could hear the angel’s whimpering and the demon’s teeth grinding, and that fuelled his anger. Trust me, damnit – I just need a little more time! Only the necessary strength! I can do it…

“Let’s put that aside for now, Adam,” she evaded and smiled up into his face, a smile that managed to be both attractive and nauseating, “let’s focus on who you are… and what you want.”

“Adam, we…” Brian spoke up hesitantly from the background, but nobody seemed to pay him notice.

“A few hours ago, you were determined to put an end to this,” the snake woman charmed him; his heart pounded as his chest tightened. Lilith was playing with his hair, and Adam involuntarily felt reminded of his earliest childhood, as Mom (Deirdre, her name is Deirdre Young) had carried him in her arms, sung to him, calmed him with her body heat and heartbeat. And this one? She was cold. She was icy. There was nothing about her that even remotely suggested that she could be kind, motherly, loving… and there was nothing linking her to him.

Who was this monster kneeling in front of him?

Adam tried to free himself; she didn’t allow it.

“Let him go, you bitch!” Pepper yelled; Adam just hoped the angel was still shielding her.

“What has changed?” the snake lady continued to push him. “It only takes a little effort, darling, just a little resolve and violence, yes, but then all of this is ours, an endless playground just for you. If you want…” she gestured carelessly toward of his friends, “… you can keep these human children, darling. We can make them immortal. We can prevent them from changing or turning away. We, the three of us together, your father, you and I, we can make this place be anything you ever wanted it to be – you, and nobody else. You will have power…”

Deirdre… Young.

Arthur… Young!

Adam felt calm flood his thoughts over attaching them to his parents who really were; and the more he concentrated on their faces, their voices, what he really wanted, the more unreal and blurred the woman became whose hand was on the nape of his neck. The clearer he could see Dad, Dad in his old rickety car, on the way to the base to pick him up and ground him for the puny remainder of his life…

He imagined putting everything about him that had anything to do with these creatures in an upper layer, a layer like an overall which he only had to shrug out of. It stung, but the pain was nothing compared to that of the claw hand in his hair.

“But I don’t want anything to change,” he said, sounding choked, staring straight at her scary eyes. “I like this world. And I like my friends – by the way, they’re people and not something you can own. And I like them the way they are…”

“Nonsense!” Satan bellowed from the background, but Adam didn’t even raise his head to acknowledge him. “You were created – you were born to rule them. Do not deny this to yourself! It is your destiny to rise above them and kick them into the dust where they belong!”

A horrible pain started pounding behind Adam’s forehead; he bit his lower lip and controlled himself as best as he could. He decided now that he would refuse to continue talking to these monsters; he would just pretend they weren’t there, as if they were a particularly gruesome and scary nightmare, and above all, he would use all his strength to deny them their parentage.

The overall. Strip it off.

“Listen to me, Adam!” Lilith resorted to shouting now.

No, Adam thought, squinting his eyes tight. No, you are not my mother, you have no power over me. I don’t have to listen to you and I don’t have to take orders from you.

“It works!” The demon’s voice, as if under remarkable strain. “Whatever you do, Adam, don’t stop!”

Adam could feel the cold air flowing around him where he had already gotten rid of the overall. It felt like he was emerging from a pool of syrup and could finally breathe again.

The snake lady’s grip on the back of his neck grew progressively lighter, smokier; she noticed it too and tried to grasp him more tightly, but Adam’s neck and her hand already seemed to belong to different levels of existence. “You have it in you, this anger,” she continued to urge him, compelling herself to stay in a halfway concrete state, “What is there to say against erasing what makes you so angry? Adam! Darling! You will never have to feel this anger again!” 

Adam was so intolerably tense that he feared something inside him might break like a piano string.

For her part, Lilith was obviously desperate. “All of this can be yours! You will be able to shape all of this according to your will!”

Lucifer thundered something inarticulate.

And why should I want that? Why should I want to control everything?

You… are not… my… PARENTS!

“Everything you do not like on this Earth you will erase…”

“AND WHAT’S THE POINT?”

Adam was startled by his own voice, by the sheer rage in it; but only for a split second. The metaphor had disappeared from his head, but he no longer needed it. He knew he was free – he had lost everything he ever had in common with these... brutes.

He would defeat them if it was the last thing he did.

“I will no longer be influenced by you! I have my own mind, my own will, and I don’t want to do anything you want to force me to! All my life Mom told me to use my own head, think for myself, not to blindly run after anyone else, and now I should stop just because I’m part of some prophecy or some such bull? I want people who learn and see… for themselves… not people who depend on my word! I want people to learn from their mistakes and their surroundings and things that happen to them and everyone, and I want people to look at each other, and most of all I want YOU TO STOP ACTING AS IF YOU WERE MY PARENTS!”

There was another tremor, a blinding flash of light – and then it was as if none of the previous events had ever happened. Aziraphale, the sword weak in his lowered hand, finally allowed the children to leave the safe space behind his back; they ran to Adam who had dropped to his knees on the spot, and just as they gently slid him to the ground, the car in which Arthur and Deirdre Young had followed their son rolled onto the airbase. They got out and saw and heard nothing but the children who had gathered around their fallen son.

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a confused but deeply relieved look.

They had dodged a major bullet there.


	4. The Rosemary's-Baby-Method - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a satanic ritual has unforeseen consequences.
> 
> Point of view characters: an original character of mine, later a third-person-narrator.

The light was dim; the atmosphere hazy and thick, saturated with the sheen and heat from a dozen candles, the energies and chanting of several figures wearing black robes. Ada lay on her back, her arms stretched at her sides and her legs gently spread, in the middle of the chalk circle that had been drawn onto the floor prior to the ritual, and she felt everything. Every _single_ thing. She felt the drugs bubble in her veins, felt every drip of sweat on her skin, felt every movement of the atmosphere and the flickering candle flames, felt the cold metal pendant that rested on her calmly rising and falling chest, felt the pig’s blood that slowly dried on her skin, and finally, she felt how laughable all of this was.

For example, she couldn’t effectively keep her thoughts off the need to grocery shop for the weekend, and that she needed to make time somewhere to take her terrier, Asmodeus, for a walk. She needed to get started on that essay for her seminar, and she wondered what the next episode of Supernatural might be like. She wondered how long and how intensely she’d need to wash herself if she ever wanted to get rid of the bloody runes all over her. Good that everyone else was wearing hoods and reciting a chant with eyes closed; this way, they couldn’t see how Ada time after time broke into a silly grin.

Make no mistake, though, she was just as dedicated and convinced Satanist as the next guy. But once you had seen this very ritual about twenty times from different perspectives it mostly lost its appeal, and one started to let one’s mind wander or simply doze off. Especially if all you had to do was to lay there, stare at the ceiling and try your best not to fall asleep.

Wouldn’t that be fun, though? If she nodded off halfway through the ritual and by her snoring interrupted everyone’s incantations? Ada couldn’t bite back a giggle which was immediately followed by a faint fear – would she be reprimanded now?

Nothing happened. The murmuring of the others faded into the distance. So, it was probably safe to assume nobody had noticed…? Breathing a sigh of relief, Ada wetted her lips with her tongue; been lucky for once. She wasn’t really feeling relieved; more mildly surprised, like a woman who watched a mediocre crime series on a hot summer day and the investigators had just made some minor detail an unlikely huge turning point for their research. With the exact same emotion she registered that the floor beneath her shoulder blades and hips shook moderately.

“Ada,” something grumbled into her ear. It was a mildly threatening voice, irritable and low, but Ada didn’t find the strength to be intimidated. 

“Mmmmm-hmmmm,” she muttered and lightly shrugged her shoulders to adjust her posture somewhat, for comfort; she wasn’t able to say more. The drugs made her tongue heavy and sluggish.

Something hovered over her. Ada thought she sensed discomfort with that. Even if there was no touch, no weight upon her, the mere thought that there was a body stretching over her was upsetting. She turned her head sideways and attempted to move her fingers and toes – just to see how much she was still in control of her own physique – and got inconclusive results. She was able to manipulate muscle and sinew, but at a snail’s pace. This was disquieting in a distant, murky way, but it didn’t reach Ada’s innermost, which was why no fear bubbled up.

The face she saw floating above as she glanced back up was blurred and featureless. She didn’t believe she had ever met this guy, and he was damn red-faced… maybe a sunburn. The mother of all sunburns. The kind of sunburn you caught if you wandered through the Sahara naked for three days.

The serpent damn it… Ada couldn’t remember ever having been this high. But then, she relativized almost immediately, that was most likely the whole reason to get high in the first place: so you wouldn’t need to remember anything you said, saw, did, heard, thought while you were.

The stranger’s touch didn’t help relieving Ada’s delirium; she clung to each and every word he said as he begun to speak, but still, these words went up in thin, cold, colourless smoke in her innermost. She didn’t know why, but as the stranger leant down towards her, she embraced him, caressed his broad, muscular back, pressed him to her, found utter relaxation and expected what was to come with an odd sense of joy and dedication.

A moment. Were those wings she touched?

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m telling you, Syl… that wasn’t Mark who came to me. I know it wasn’t!”

Ada and her friend Sylvia sat in a coffeeshop and stirred their coffee without much enthusiasm as Ada said this. Asmodeus was at his owner’s feet and played with a chew toy. Sylvia merely sighed; since Ada had woken out of her drugged stupor that day, she was convinced that it had worked, that this time, the devil had taken the time and effort to show up in person to complete the ritual with the chosen priestess. Sure, Mark, too, hinted that he had lost consciousness before he had been able to enter the circle, but this could very well be due to the cocktail of drugs they had been made to imbibe beforehand. Losing parts of one’s memory because of that wasn’t exactly unheard of.

“I know what Mark’s built like and how… well, what he feels like. And I know there are no wings anywhere on him!”

(“And, how’s Satan been between the sheets?” Stanley had asked mockingly upon Ada insinuating such a thing to a broader audience. He hadn’t seemed very inclined to believe that Satan himself would have left his sulphur bath to make the beast with two backs with one of his followers.

“Tender,” she had answered without thinking much about it. And wasn't it true? She thought she remembered soothing whispers, no caresses, but also no abuse.

“Tender,” Stanley had echoed, and Ada had understood that she wasn’t to bring that up ever again.)

“It’s okay, dear, I hear you,” Sylvia muttered and lifted her hand as if to shut up her friend; considering the fact she had been present, she seemed remarkably unwilling to hear more about this than was strictly necessary. Most of all not in a coffeeshop where they were stared at for dressing the way they did. “But, think: how come none of us remember a winged… golem like you described? We were all around you and none of us took any substance. We would have noticed if something was off.”

Ada chewed her lower lip in discomfort as Sylvia put forth this argument. This disquieted her as well. But then, they were talking about a powerful supernatural entity. It was quite possible, certainly, that Satan had been able to mess with their perception as well, even during the ritual…

Just to make one thing perfectly clear: Ada was loyal and devoted enough a Satanist that she would see Satan rising out of Hell to make her a part of his plans – or just to accept her personal sacrifice – as a gigantic honour. It would be like… like all these dudes from the Bible who had been visited by angels, just, you know, cool. But this? This here confused her. It made no sense whatsoever.

Besides, she knew she was pregnant. Despite the facts that she took the pill quite assiduously and Mark had had a vasectomy years ago, there was no arguing about this; she couldn’t tell why or how, but the truth of this was fixed in her mind. It was almost as if she could already feel the second heartbeat…

“You’re taking the piss,” Sylvia grumbled as Ada let her in on that secret. She soberly shook her head.

“I’m not,” she muttered and shoved a cookie, served along with the coffee, between her lips.

Sylvia let that sink in for a moment, played with her cup and stared into the far-off rather than her friend’s face before she asked, “So, will you be getting rid of it?”

A lightning bolt jerked through Ada’s veins upon this; a storm of revulsion and murderous anger and hatred for the gall her friend had to even bring such a thing up to her. It obviously had been visible in her face since Sylvia jolted back and defensively lifted her hands. “Damnit, Ada, fine! Calm down, it was just a question. No need to glower at me as if you’d rip my tongue out or something.”

Ada merely grunted. A grimly satisfied part of her was very well of the opinion that this had been necessary, and this alarmed her much less than it probably should.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

This happened a couple of weeks later – another ritual after Ada’s ghostly encounter with the creature she still claimed had been winged. Nobody seemed to take her seriously, though her report had stirred up some mumblings; and what could not be denied by anyone was that she grew more agitated every day, that her skin felt ashen and her bones brittle and breakable, that she herself felt ill and tired and a little as if she’d carry a heated, pulsing stone within her womb. It was irritating, and friends and family kept commenting she didn’t look in the best of health, but for the moment, she managed to soldier on.

No-one in the circle expected any evil. Nobody expected any supernatural thing to happen as Elise, the High Priestess, raised her knife over the unfortunate and aimlessly fluttering raven they had found with a broken wing in the courtyard. Around her, voices chanted the usual vulgar Latin; Ada had asked to be allowed to sit, her back and knees were killing her, and she was the first to feel the stranger approach.

The stranger’s presence felt like an unexpected bath in saltwater. It was bitter and musty on the tongue, mild rustling of waves resounded in Ada’s ears, and a light breeze tickled her nose. It was almost to be called comforting; even the pain subsided a bit. At least until she felt that hand put itself to rest on her shoulder; a powerful, cold, amphibian hand.

“Greetings, chosen one,” something hissed above and behind her.


	5. The Rosemary's-Baby-Method - Part II

Ada moaned; in those moments she also realized that the glances of everyone around were fixed on her and the figure behind her with intermingled fear and reverence. 

“Fear me,” the creature hissed, “I am Dagon, and Lord Beelzebub sends me to tell you it is true.”

There was a pause.

“Excuse me…” Elise cleared her throat and raised her hand from the still untouched raven which fluttered away in a hurry, “but… that, um, what exactly is true? Forgive our ignorance, but…”

Ada sighed and leaned the back of her head against Dagon’s stomach. The demon accepted this without comment. “He came to her,” said the sharp voice. “The Master has risen and united with this human. The result of this act…”

“The Antichrist,” breathed Elise.

Ada could hardly follow the conversation. She was dizzy. She didn’t want this to go on – she wanted to go home, to rest and raise her legs and eat ice cream. Only this woman above and behind her should never let go of her. She felt safe and sheltered in her proximity.

“And as much as this treasure has been entrusted to Ada…” the grin on the demon’s face was almost audible, “as much she is entrusted to – you. Understand what that means. Understand that you have to bow to the chosen one’s every whim. Understand that it is your duty to keep her safe from suffering – any sort of suffering. And know, as well, that the consequences…” another amused break; Ada filled it with the image of a tongue stroking pursed lips and razor-sharp teeth with great appetite. “… well, that at least I will enjoy the consequences if you fail.”

Sylvia was first to respond; she pushed back her hood, resolutely approached Ada and dropped to her knees in front of her, grasping her hands. “Command me, mother of the Antichrist,” she breathed with huge, dreamy eyes, “forgive my doubts and consider me your slave – your word will be my command.”

The rest of the circle soon followed suit, and Ada closed her eyes in the reassuring certainty of the demon’s presence, her strong grip on her shoulder and her unmoved support for her head and back.

\--------------------------------------------------------

Now Ada was neither a gynaecologist nor a midwife – but she found that there was something off about this pregnancy. Yes, of course, she had the swollen feet, the constant urge to piss, the pressure on all organs, and the pain both when standing and sitting – but her strange cravings were stranger, and the child seemed to emit an inexplainable heat. At least she had a built-in hot water bottle for cool winter nights, Ada got used to joking with friends and family, but the longer this went on, the more she worried.

And did that thing ever stop _growing_?

In this marked condition, Ada increasingly often left the bed at night, simply to hike or to empty her fridge – to ingest raw meat, raw eggs, litres of milk, and whole bars of chocolate. Not even Asmodeus’ dog food seemed to be all that unappealing anymore. 

If she did manage to sleep through the night, she had the strangest dreams – dreams in which creatures overgrown with sores, swarmed by flies, mosquitoes, beetles and other vermin or with reptiles on their heads were staring at her – perhaps guarding her? – or massaging her back or swollen legs. Dreams in which she saw different cities or countries engulfed in sky-high flames.

The entire order was around her, zealous as bees, and served her to the best of their abilities - on the flip side, she was no longer allowed to leave their field of vision, at least one member of the circle was with her steadily to ensure that nothing could happen to the Antichrist. Dagon also showed up every now and then, but mostly only for a few minutes to check on Ada’s progress and well-being.

The bigger and stronger the child became, the smaller, narrower, bonier and paler Ada felt, despite all the care she received. The pain, the pain was excruciating, sometimes unbearable, the heaviness within her, and the hunger, this inhuman hunger… In the end, it didn’t even seem unlikely that she would devour her pooch hair and skin, her cravings were this uncontrollable and untameable.

After about seven months, the doctor whom she regularly consulted, accompanied by two members of the circle, insisted that she should go to inpatient treatment – he too was alarmed by the child’s rapid and apparently unstoppable growth. “If this continues,” he had murmured, combing through his sparse hair, “we will perhaps be forced get the child early.” Ada had tried to be horrified or relieved but failed both. She fell more and more into a stupor that removed her clean from the world – maybe it would ultimately help her to be rid of the little one.

After a while, she had to be transferred from the group room she had initially been placed in to a single room – many of the expectant mothers had complained that this skeleton in the bed one over worried and frightened them, that the stench she emitted was unbearable, not to mention those black-hooded figures that buzzed around her at any time of the day or night.

She laughed at the thought, heavily coughing. She could sympathize – she herself had noticed the foul smell that was now lingering about her, no matter how often and how meticulously she washed, and what terrifying, skeletonized form her usually so healthy, finely tattooed body had taken on. It almost scared her to look in the mirror. She heard whispers that if her weight and strength kept deteriorating like that, she had rapidly declining chances of surviving birth, and shockingly, she found she no longer cared. It should just end… the pain should stop.

Eventually, Ada's labour started in her hospital bed, a month and a half early – the doctors, nurses and midwives were at a loss, but they acted instinctively. They had to help their patient – which meant two things: one, they chased all Ada’s brothers and sisters in Satan out into the hallway because they could not use them in the delivery room. Two, they sedated Ada halfway there because her contractions were getting worse without the baby budging and finally had to get it out by caesarean section. Ada only barely survived; already a great success for the doctors, many of whom had utterly given up on her. Without the child, one of the midwives whispered with something like fear, she looked more like an empty shell than like the shining young mothers that they were used to.

The child, however, was fine. It was a healthy, exceptionally well developed, extraordinarily large and above all extraordinarily red baby boy with ostensibly well-functioning lungs.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

In the middle of the night two men wandered into the maternity ward; they moved through the darkness as if they had been born and raised there and left a blood-drenched head nurse and two at least unconscious Satanists in their wake, at the entrance to the station. Their coats swished over the floor, their arms hung from their shoulders as if they hardly knew how to use them, and their raggedy boots left muddy footprints. They were followed by an almost palpable cloud of stench, vermin and cigarette smoke. They entered the hospital and finally the new-borns’ ward in menacing silence; the few children who were awake began to kick, whimper and cry. None of the men paid attention to them.

“I heard that the angel of the Pit’s first job is to kill his mother at birth,” the dark-skinned man said. His jawline was rigid and his eyes watchful; he walked half a step ahead of his partner, seemingly ready to clear the way if necessary.

“What about it?” asked the other. He was a little taller than the dark-skinned man, looked a little worse for wear, but no less dangerous because of that. His eyes were big, round and black, seemingly staring right into your soul and scorching it.

“Nothing about it. I just heard it.”

“So are we looking for a child without a mother? How should we recognize it?”

“We will recognize the Master’s child when we see it.”

“It will recognize us too, I think.”

“Of course it will recognize us. A master always recognizes his servants.”

The taller one – Duke Hastur, of Hell – just grumbled. His eyes slid over the toddlers; none of them seemed to catch his attention.

“I was just thinking,” the shorter man, Duke Ligur of Hell, started again, tapping one of the children on the head, which reacted by screaming with all the power of its small lungs, “I don’t trust the Lord. What if he also gets us out of the way when the job is done?”

Silence. Except for the babies screaming, of course.

“He can try,” Hastur murmured.

“You think we can defend ourselves?” Ligur, who was inexperienced in conveying emotions anyway, sounded more bored and mildly interested than anxious.

Hastur shrugged. “Two demons can kill a half-human child.”

“But he is the son of the Morningstar. It will not reflect well on us.”

“Being dead or discorporated won’t, either.”

Ligur said nothing – firstly because there were no further words about it, and secondly because he had found the child this very moment. Exceptionally red, indeed. Unusually calm. Didn’t burst into tears or screams upon laying eye on them. His eyes were shiny and incredibly alert; as if he knew or at least suspected that his destiny was awaiting.

He actually looked a bit like he wanted to make the demons report to him.

“That’s him.” Ligur lifted the child out of his cradle; Hastur opened the basket.

“I was just thinking,” continued Ligur as soon as the Antichrist was safely stowed away and the two demons turned to leave. “Shouldn’t we make sure the mother was properly sacrificed?”

“No.” Hastur didn’t even hesitate and didn’t slow his pace for a split second. “No time… the flash bastard will already be waiting for us. In addition… of course the mother was sacrificed.”

“After all, that’s how it is written.”

“Indeed.”


	6. The Laboratory Method - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hastur and Ligur have a slightly… different load, and assignment for Crowley.
> 
> Point of view characters: Aziraphale, Crowley.

It was a quiet day from which the angel Aziraphale was about to recover; one more day of him having achieved his goal and sold absolutely nothing. He had taken a tour of the closed and deserted bookstore and all the books were well in place and dust-free; the sun was slowly sinking, and traffic on both the streets and sidewalks was slowly dying down. Not that it ever was completely silent in his part of London, but that was how Aziraphale liked humanity best, anyway: with a pane of glass between himself and them so that he knew they were there and could watch them with a mixture of reserved admiration and perplexity, but still keep a comforting distance.

The angel made himself comfortable in a corner of the bookshop with a fine cup of tea; music by Tchaikovsky sounded from the gramophone, and Aziraphale hummed along for a few notes as he pinched the reading glasses on his nose and placed a voluminous, ancient book on his desk. The angel dimmed the light; his angelic body had exceptionally keen eyesight, so he was perfectly able to work in the pitch dark, and the dim light added to his comfort.

Hardly anyone knew, but in his free time and sometimes for a fee Aziraphale devoted himself to the fine art of restoring ancient books. It was a skill he had acquired through centuries of patience and practice and the instruction of some medieval monks, and it not only made him happy because it brought old parchment back to its original splendour, it also helped him unwind a little. The book in front of him needed a refresh of ink and colour; the angel treated it with all the awe given to a beloved grandparent. He also put on a fresh pair of surgical gloves before opening it and returning to where he had stopped last night. Holding his breath, he picked up the historically accurate stylus and pulled the inkwell closer; now a steady hand and complete serenity…

He vaguely took note of the brakes that squealed outside his shop barely half an hour later but did not consider them important. The narrow line on this ‘e’ was a much more thrilling than all the world. At least until the front door the angel distinctly remembered locking was thrust open and someone let themselves in with unashamedly pounding gait. Aziraphale didn’t need two attempts to guess who visited him in this outrageously rude manner.

“In earnest, dear,” he murmured, raising his head, studying the intruder sternly over the reading glasses and holding the stylus in the air.

Crowley, standing in the entryway shrouded in dark, raised a hand and snapped the door shut again. His expression was illegible; the angel saw in his posture, however, that something was amiss.

“The telephone has already been invented and doors are there for us to knock on.”

Crowley groaned, theatrically spreading his arms. “Here I stand discussing modern technology with you, angel,” he grunted, “put that aside, I have to talk to you. Gotta tell you something, you won’t believe me. And drink. Drink a whole lot…”

“So dinner this time? I think you still owe me…” Aziraphale conscientiously stored his antique tools and pushed the book away so the ink could dry properly before rising from his armchair.

He turned the lights back up and was about to take the record off the plate as Crowley said, “No, no dinner. Just the two of us. In private. Here. Alcohol first, angel… then we’ll talk.”

The demon sagged weakly onto his place on the couch and turned his sunglasses-clad face to the ceiling; Aziraphale eyed him doubtfully for a few moments before rushing into the back room to return with two glasses and a bottle of cognac. The tea had to be cold anyway…

“So,” he asked as he poured the cognac out, “what is on your mind…?”

Crowley managed to pull a face at the angel before he grabbed his glass and emptied it in one frantic gulp; Aziraphale grimaced disapprovingly. This was not a way to treat a fine cognac, surely…

“More,” the demon demanded, pounding the glass on the table, and Aziraphale considered reprimanding his friend for being overly reckless with his interior – as sharply as he could muster the strength to be. “If I’m going to get through this again, I need… angel, I tell you, you have no idea.”

Aziraphale sighed and exercised patience; while he was merely sipping the amber liquid deferentially, Crowley tipped another two glasses. Only then was he prepared to begin his narrative; he threw the sunglasses on the table and rubbed his forehead, all under the watchful and questioning angelic look. His snake eyes gave away no emotion, but the rest of his face and body spoke clearly to the angel: Crowley was confused, angry and stunned, and most of all he was at a loss.

“I’m telling you…” his speech had already started to become slurred and insecure, “… I’m telling you, you won’t believe a word. Not one. I got… I got an order from the office again, from the all the way up… below… anyway, Beelzebub approved of it…”

_Hastur and Ligur… two of the copious reasons why Crowley preferred Earth to Hell fifty times over._

_There the two Dukes stood at the designated meeting point in this remote cemetery, one smoked, both made a very complacent impression, carrying a basket and looking at him expectantly, if reproachfully. Yeah, bless it, he was running late, but they should try for themselves to find a parking space with his type of car at the central visiting time and then so far out where the streets were uneven and…_

_The usual banter followed. Ave Satanas and all that – the deeds of the day, all the evil they spread across Earth and the spirits of humanity. Crowley wasn’t particularly interested; in fact, he thought Hastur and Ligur’s approach to be both tasteless and outdated. It was also cold and rainy here, and Crowley’s snake nature didn’t respond well to either. Better to return to the apartment as soon as possible and let himself go a little in the warmer atmosphere of his secure four walls… maybe if they had a job for him that seemed halfway achievable, he would also worry about how and when it could be done._

_“Times are changing,” Hastur let him know._

_If you grin now, Crowley thought, I’ll gladly wipe it off your face…_

_“They are coming to an end… for a start,” added Ligur._

_With which they pushed the basket towards him._

_Crowley felt his lips go cold and parched, and his innards sank; his tongue dried in his mouth with every millisecond he stared at the basket. A simple basket; nothing special and yet a symbol of the worst catastrophe he could think of. That couldn’t be true. He had just started to settle in…_

_“Then… it is time?” he heard himself ask, felt his larynx move, but was a hundred per cent certain that he was not making it do this on his own initiative or strength._

_“Yes,” Hastur replied._

_You go on and make fun of me… and this, you bastard…_

_“Already?” he asked, hopelessly._

_“Yes,” it came from Ligur, a smile around the corner of his mouth._

The angel looked up from his cognac in alarm. “That means…” he started, and the demon threw his hands in the air in exasperation.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you all the way!” he hissed, “But you, you’re just not listening!”

Aziraphale tightened his lips and shot his friend a reproachful, downright hurt look; Crowley noticed and bowed his head. He didn’t apologize directly, but said, “It’s alright, alright… that was probably a little too much, I admit it.”

Aziraphale’s face relaxed; he wasn’t completely mollified, but he wouldn’t let Crowley know. Not for now. He looked tense enough as it was. Furthermore, it seemed much more pressing that they discuss, “So that means the end… is at hand. What do we do now that the child…”

“The child!” Crowley fired a fit of hoarse laughter into the store; the angel winced. He had never seen his friend so completely out of control. He tipped another glass full of cognac and continued, swallowing and hesitating, “Child, child, child. If it had just been a… a child, Aziraphale, I’d have been able to wrap my head around that, but this here…”

“Just keep going, then.”

_“So it's up to me?”_

_Another “Yes” from the two dukes. Crowley was beginning to think he had fallen into a prayer wheel – probably not a good fate for a demon._

_“Take this letter,” Ligur instructed him while Crowley was already hesitantly reaching for the basket, unsure whether it might explode if he touched it. Everything was possible with Hastur and Ligur… “It contains everything you need to know. An address. A time. The names. Don’t dare disappoint us.”_

_The basket was unusually light considering that it contained a human infant._

_“I and disappoint you.” The words gushed out of Crowley’s throat before they properly reached his brain. He even managed a little dry laughter. “I – you know that I am the most reliable field agent on Earth, you know that. Big fan of Armageddon, me – can’t come early enough. Whatever is entrusted to me is good as done. Yes.”_

_“You can only hope it is true, Crowley.”_

_“You know the consequences if you fail, Crowley.”_

_Of course he knew. And his name too, thank you very much._

_His jaw moved listlessly for a few moments before he took his leave, signed for his freight, returned to the Bentley to throw the basket on the back seat and searched the letter for the address mentioned._

_Quite close to the city centre, of course. So Crowley had a nice long time thinking about what he was doing, what he would rather do, and how he planned to deal with it later. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but a slight fear was budding in him. What if he couldn’t stop it?_

_He could throw the child overboard at any time, he mused. At the speeds the Bentley reached with Crowley behind the wheel, tumbling into a ditch would surely break necks sturdier than that of the new-born Antichrist. But he feared Hell’s revenge, and besides…_

“You didn’t seriously consider harming a child,” Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley grimaced.

“Considered it?” He shrugged. “I did. Sure I did. Why not, after all, ‘tis the Antichrist…”

“May I remind you of the ark – how horrified you were?” Aziraphale asked nervously; Crowley searched for a suitable answer for a few moments, then simply rubbed his palm over his face and continued.


	7. The Laboratory Method - Part II

_So he drove. He drove tirelessly through the rainy late afternoon, and nothing untoward happened to the Antichrist. The baby lay undisturbed and safe and sound and doubtlessly soft and warm in his basket; only the occasional bumps in the road Crowley travelled over might have shaken him a bit. He accepted this, however, with silence and magnanimousness. The radio was sensibly turned off; Crowley had had more than enough of head office for the foreseeable future._

_The building he finally reached at the address that had been passed to him roused no suspicions at all. Where else should a baby swap happen than in a big hospital? As he exited his parked car, Crowley mused that getting access there wouldn’t be exactly child’s play, but then, the one or the other demonic miracle was certainly deemed good and proper in that case._

_Or… evil and proper. Whatever._

_The night audit – a fat man in his best years with a surprisingly edgy, hard face and strong upper arms whose uniform was quite tight and labelled him Officer Markison – was who first took notice of the demon. “Evening, sir,” he greeted as Crowley entered the surprisingly little-populated entrance hall, “what may a simple night security do for you today?”_

_“Yeah, I… I’m looking for…”, Crowley consulted the slip of paper again, “Doctor Martinez and Ms. … Ms. Wellington-Howers. This says they should be in room 5…”_

_“Then you’re Mr. Anthony J. Crowley, I presume?” The demon very much disliked the broad smile of the security and his upbeat personality, he decided._

_“One and the same,” he answered, pulling himself together._

_“The proud father. Wonderful.”_

_Crowley merely lifted a brow. No-one had ever taken him for Satan before… maybe it was the hair. Or the sunglasses? The leather jacket?_

_“And I see you brought the material… perfect. Might I add that a wicker basket is a very… well, unusual vessel for…”_

_Crowley didn’t answer. He concentrated on grilling the night security with a hopefully menacing look through his tinted glasses to make him understand that the demon had neither time for nor interest in any fooling around. And that he meant business._

_“But then, of course, I guess that’s none of my business.” He gave some repressed laughter. “Do you happen to have any ID with you, sir?”_

_“Wouldn’t be caught without one.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and a satisfied smile graced the security’s face. “That enough?”_

_“Perfect. Treatment rooms are on the third floor – just take the elevator, third floor, take a right and the 5 is the second door to the left. Can’t possibly miss it. Good luck; I hope you’re successful.”_

_“Better hope we’re not,” Crowley muttered, but nevertheless made for the elevators._

Here Crowley interrupted himself and rested his forehead onto his fingertips; Aziraphale contemplated him uneasily. Even if he didn’t fully understand the events his friend was unfolding here, his behaviour was unsettling enough to communicate to the angel that he was severely thrown by them. He himself, however, worried much more about what was to be done about the Antichrist… maybe he should consult his own head office. Maybe they had a plan and could give him further instructions. Quite certainly they would sooner or later notice by themselves that the Antichrist had been born, and at that time, it would maybe be profitable for them to know that one of their agents had already assigned himself to the problem…

But first, he needed to reassure the visibly troubled demon in his bookshop. “Do you need a break?” he asked sympathetically, but Crowley waved him off.

“‘s good, ‘s good,” he muttered, “jus’ have to… to pull m’self together, angel, you know, for the… for the las’ part of the story. I don’ even know how… if…”

“Take your time, dear,” Aziraphale said after a sip from his cognac, “but not until the end of the world, if you’d be so kind.”

“Thangyou,” grumbled Crowley, leaning back for a moment, “I don’ even know what I would do without you… would. Is unspeakably soothing to have you ‘round.”

“Oh really?” Aziraphale seemed glad to hear it; but why was it that Crowley’s snake eyes suddenly looked at him like an oblivious adolescent?

_Room 5 was just as easy to find as Markison had said; the door was slightly ajar which made Crowley assume he was expected, so he let himself in without knocking. In the gynaecologic chair that occupied the approximate centre of the room sat a woman: a little stocky, black-haired, with thick brows and a strong chin. The expression with which she greeted the intruding demon was firm and a little ill-pleased, and Crowley caught himself in thinking she’d have been attractive under other circumstances. She didn’t seem like a person who was taking bullshit from anyone._

_In a niche containing a computer, a microscope and other medical equipment sat another woman. She was dark-skinned, wore elliptical spectacles on her short nose, had thick black hair bound back in a ponytail and long, pointy nails which should, at least in Crowley’s humble opinion, be a hindrance in her field of occupation._

_Both women measured him with calculating, sceptic, challenging, but also well-mannered expressions as he walked in. “You’re late, Mr. Crowley,” the one whom he interpreted as being the doctor spoke up first, rose and approached him with a hand outstretched, “I am Helena Martinez, Ms. Wellington-Howers’ physician. I can assure you she is healthy as a horse, as they say… if the father’s material is suitable, we can get right started.”_

_Her handshake was fierce and a bit bony._

_Material… the second time Crowley heard this tonight, referring to the infant. He hadn’t heard anything like this before. Since when were babies referred to as ‘material’?_

_“Isla Wellington-Howers,” the second lady introduced herself without rising from the chair; Crowley, in his confusion, approached her himself to shake her hand as well. Her hands were a little softer and meatier than the doctor’s, but she squeezed much tighter. “Pleasure to meet you, I’m sure, though, to tell you the truth, I usually don’t do business like this.”_

_“If you’d just hand this over…” the doctor muttered and finally took the basket off Crowley’s hands; he, meanwhile, stared at Ms. Wellington-Howers. “I… business? I don’t think I follow.”_

_Isla Wellington-Howers rolled her eyes. “I mean, without ever having seen or talked to my clients,” she explained, “just over messengers and all that. Usually I try to get to know my clients a little to know the children grow up in good families. If the money wasn’t that good, and I didn’t need it…”_

_“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Crowley felt himself raise his hands defensively and staggered back two paces. The doctor, meanwhile, opened the basket and retrieved something from it. Crowley couldn’t see what it was; what he could very well discern, however, was that the basket was filled to a good part with Pound notes. “I think you take me for someone I’m not. I’m just the messenger… I don’t, and I also don’t want to know any details. I just bring you… this, and then I’m off again…”_

_“But I,” now Isla Wellington-Howers straightened up almost threateningly, “I require details, and you’re not leaving until I get them. Listen, I know you want to keep your job as well, but I need to know who I’m working for. I need to know something about the environment, the family I am birthing that child into. I mean I can tell they are obscenely rich…” with which she eloquently nodded to the wicker basket filled with money, “… since they can afford to pay a surrogate mother nearly thrice her usual fee, and that – you know, from their refusal to use online-banking to pay me and the letter they sent they are pretty old-fashioned… I mean who uses a calligraphy pen and ink nowadays that we have ballpoint pens? Who writes anything by hand still, for God’s sake? But that’s all not sufficient. I need to know, Mr. Crowley, why they even need me. Are they homosexual? Single and hear their biological clock ticking? Or does one of them have fertility or health problems?”_

_Even as Crowley thought he had halfway caught up with what was going on, the doctor made herself known again, “Everything looks fine from my perspective – sperm count is good, mobility is perfect, everything seems normal and healthy. Any time you’re ready, Isla, we can get started…”_

_Crowley felt his eyes pierced, even through the sunglasses, by the woman on the medical chair; he had never wished more fervently for the ability to just sink into the ground. “Problems,” he stammered, stepping backwards in the approximate direction of the door, “Problems, yes… huge problems. They’ll hate me for saying that, but who cares, they hate me anyway, so I guess I can say it with a clear conscience. Or something like that. Gigantic problems, yes. He can hardly push through, you know, and her, I don’t want to get started about her at all… I have to hit the road now, quickly… yes…”_

As Crowley fell silent this time, his forehead rested on the tabletop and he was panting; Aziraphale felt torn between amusement and compassion. What exactly made Crowley feel so bad he couldn’t fathom; it looked like there was no baby after all. No baby meant no Antichrist, meant no apocalypse. Easy. It seemed he had only had to take on a minor chore for his superiors, like they all did…

“D’ you realize what that means?” Crowley mumbled, raising his head again. “I drove through half of London… an’ had in a basket inne back seat of my, of my very own car… I had my boss’s little soldiers with me.”

Little soldiers? Did he mean… child soldiers? In a simple basket? Now Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

“White sauce, angel,” the demon continued desperately, “a whole shot or more. The baby juice. S-P-E-R-M.”

Aziraphale didn’t seem to follow.

It was quiet for a few moments, and the angel and demon measured each other.

“Why am I even taggin’ to you abou’ anythin’ like that,” Crowley finally grumbled, “I know you… oh, blessit, just forgeddit. Gimme tha' bottle, I’m… I’m still no’ drunk enough fo’ the evening.”


	8. The Laboratory Method - Part III

Months flew by, and the cognac and Crowley’s will and determination – perhaps also a little miracle by the angel’s compassionate hand – had reduced that event to a mild shadow in his memory. Aziraphale hadn’t mentioned anything further, suggesting that he either still didn’t understand or understood it all too well and, like his demonic friend, didn’t want to talk about it, or think about it, or just acknowledge it as something that had transpired.

It was dusk as Crowley, driving his trusty vintage Bentley, was on the way back into London that day, with horns blaring and curses ringing from all around. He had wanted some distance from the city after disrupting the phone lines; any minor calamity brought about by oneself was better, and more safely, observed from a certain distance in his distinguished opinion. The radio boomed its nonsense, the demon scarcely paid attention to it. Only as the news came on, he listened well; sooner or later, someone would need to cover the strange failure of all London-based telephone lines. At the moment, however, the station was playing advertisements. For what exactly? Crowley was unable to say more than that the voice of the woman reading the lines was decidedly too chipper.

_“… minutes, unlimited SMS, and the new Huawei…”_

Aha. So cell phone contracts. How ironic.

_“… and for everyone who already has a smartphone – Hello Crowley.”_

The demon was startled upon being so abruptly addressed – but he was sufficiently used to it to limit his reactions to cramping his hands and baring his teeth, and not lose control of the car. He groaned softly before answering, “Oh… oh, um, hello guys. Pleasant afternoon we’re having today.”

 _“Spare us your double-dealing sugar-coated chatter, Crowley,”_ the voice continued, still in the lively, cheery sales tone, _“Just do what you are told. You will find a heap of metal going up in smoke, and a woman and a man. She will be in pain and he will roar with anger. You take the woman with you and bring her to St. Beryl’s, the nuns are informed and prepared for your arrival. What you do with the man is up to you, but we expect it to be painful.”_

Crowley bit his lip, nervously pressing down on the accelerator. The Bentley’s engine roared louder, the bumper of the car he followed came closer – the demon was just so able to avoid a crash, which caused further honking from fellow drivers. “Yes…”, he murmured, intensely fraught, “about that, now…”

But the connection was already broken. The next commercial had started, something about insurance, told by a young man and a child. It didn’t worry Crowley that he hadn’t been given directions – if Beelzebub said he’d find them, he’d find them. Hell had its ways.

In fact, only a few minutes of breakneck driving after the message had reached him, he saw a figure standing on the side of the road; a figure stretching out into the traffic with a desperately pleading arm. Traffic was hissing past her without even slowing down. There also was a modern car, with thick clouds of smoke rising from the front. He couldn’t see the second figure he had been promised, but well, maybe that was for the best. Maybe he could get away with the woman before the man…

Crowley took a deep breath and gathered all of his chutzpah, courage, and confidence as he pulled the Bentley to the side of the road, a little behind the damaged car – a taxi, it appeared – and stopped there. The first figure, quite definitely a woman, limped towards him, holding her stomach; upon getting out of the Bentley, he could also spot the prophesied man who, cursing and kicking and waving his fist, leaned over his broken-down automobile. The demon didn’t have much time, though, to absorb the scenery because the woman froze abruptly with about ten or fifteen steps between them.

“You!” she exclaimed, under huge pressure. Up close, she looked even more pitiful: her belly was bulging and swollen, the rest of her body rather gaunt and pale, she was covered in sweat, stooped and clearly marked by pain, wobbly on her legs, and she emitted a stale smell that made Crowley shiver. Something he couldn’t define…

“Have we met?” he asked gruffly.

The man now appeared behind his car and plunged into the middle of the conversation, “Good day, sir. Can you believe it? Now your engine’s exploded, just right from under your arse, and then you can’t even reach headquarters so they send you a tow truck. The luck some people have!”

The woman ignored him. “Sure we know each other!” she snapped at Crowley, shaken by her obstructed breath, her voice thin and fragile under all the gasping, “Anthony… J. Crowley. The guy who brought me this… this millionaire’s semen.” She had to pause; her face, her convulsive contractions seemed to be expressions of pure agony. Crowley had to work hard to not express any pity – extremely un-demonic. “What is it that you planted in my womb? It eats and eats and eats… and it doesn’t stop growing. It’s too soon… two months early… and yet my amniotic sac burst. I have to… arh…”

“Get in,” growled Crowley, stepping to the side and tipping over the front seat so that the woman could get into the back, attentively miracling a blanket onto the noble seats, wonderfully thick and absorbent but still soft, “I’ll take you to the next hosp…”

“Damn sure you will,” gasped Isla Wellington-Howers, stumbling toward Crowley’s car, “That’s about the least you can do.” The demon dodged her carefully, and artfully, as she climbed into the Bentley’s back seat; for some reason he didn’t want to touch Isla. Sure, yes, she should get to the nuns safely and get rid of her burden; but he didn’t want to get too close. One could call it instinct…

“Hey – what about me?” the taxi driver shouted; Crowley jerked his head around and pulled an annoyed face. Yes, the man. He was expected to neutralize the man… “I understand that the lady has to go to the hospital, but should I just stay here and twiddle my thumbs? I can’t get through to anyone!”

“You will soon,” Crowley cut him off, getting back in the car which was filled with Isla’s cries and groans and the biting, sweaty smell that emanated from her, “just keep trying, the phone lines can’t be tied up forever…” With which he slammed the door and took off.

As he drove past, however, he performed another little miracle. The broken car would soon be healed.

“That…” Isla huffed, “that was pretty cold.”

Crowley groaned. And stepped on the accelerator. He didn’t want to argue anymore, because next to the dread of tarnished, dirty and sticky back benches of fine leather, the memory slowly poured back into his head. How could he have been as stupid as to suppress it? Now it was underway – he was underway – and there was hardly any way to put a stop it.

Crowley and Isla stayed in silence the rest of the way, except for the prospective mother’s gasping, panting and whimpering. Crowley devoted an unusual amount of attention to the street, even considering the fact that the sun was slowly sinking and that it was darkest night as he drove the Bentley into the driveway of St. Beryl’s, the Satanic convent.

Isla only was distracted from her ordeal and her laborious, steadily accelerated breathing once the Bentley came to a sudden, albeit smooth halt. She sounded quite out of her wits as she asked, “What the hell is this, Dracula Castle? What… what are we doing here? Take me to a real hospital!”

Crowley, leaning back past the folded front seat, gritted his teeth. “It’s this or at least another half an hour of driving,” he growled, grabbing Isla’s shoulder and pushing her out of the car, “What do you prefer – to be taken care of here or to finish this in the back seat of a car?”

A question that was not a question. Crowley would not allow that sort of thing to happen in his Bentley, and if it were a hundred times about the Antichrist.

Isla said nothing; she gritted her teeth and slumped against her unwilling driver as soon as he had dragged her out of the car. Crowley swayed a little under the unexpected weight, especially since she with her passenger was much heavier than he was, but he kept himself upright, allowed her to cling to him – grudgingly – and led her towards the convent. 

There was a man in front of the door – chubby, with a receding hairline, pale, clinging to his pipe rather than smoking it; he looked like there was a comment on the tip of his tongue as Crowley and Isla pushed past him, but changed his mind about pronouncing it at the last moment, seeing the intense look on the redhead’s face.

The nuns were already waiting inside the convent; Crowley wanted to crack his usual dry jokes as they took Isla from him and led her to a maternity room, but the very idea of what was coming clenched his throat and smothered his humour.

This wasn’t good. He hated this; hated Isla’s fate, hated the danger of what she would bring into the world, hated the conspiratorial wink that Sister Mary Loquacious shot him over the shoulder of the Antichrist’s mother. He didn’t want to be complicit – not in the destruction of the world.

Aziraphale… he had to speak to Aziraphale. Earnestly this time. Without cognac. Without other alcohol. Nothing should mitigate the gravity of these events furthermore.

For the moment, however, all he could do was work another little miracle that would give the pregnant woman a little protection and ensure that she would survive that day. Crowley didn’t know what else he could do for her, or the world.

The following article appeared in most major newspapers the next day:

##### Fire in a convent – one person injured

Lower Tadfield - In a convent just a short way out of town, a devastating fire broke out yesterday that destroyed the building to the foundations. What started the fire is still unknown. Some of the surviving nuns reported lightning strikes, but this is considered unlikely due to the clear night; firefighters suspect a defective power cable as the cause. The possibility of arson is also not completely excluded.

In the burning debris, the firefighters found an unconscious woman, apparently a patient having had a difficult birth. It is a small miracle that she survived the heat and smoke-laden air long enough to allow for a rescue. She was taken to the nearest hospital by helicopter, where she has been cared for since; her condition is stable and she recovers remarkably quickly. Her identity is still unknown.


	9. The Blueprint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see how the opposition handled their envoy on Earth.
> 
> Point of view character: None. It's in drama form.

_Inside: a small, modest house. Simple but lovingly made furniture, a sheepskin and a few stalks of straw on the floor. An inconspicuous looking woman, dressed in blue and brown with lush brown locks, is humming while sweeping the floor. Suddenly there is a knock on the door._

**Woman:** _(startled)_ Hm… who…? _(placing the broom in a corner and approaching the door)_ Probably someone who wants to talk to Joseph.

_She opens the door. Outside is a tall man with an angular face and piercing, bright eyes, wrapped in a light grey, almost silvery coat. Even though he’s standing on the dusty, sandy road, his bare feet are clean and untouched. His hands are clasped in front of his stomach. The Woman draws back a little; you can tell that she is instantly awestruck._

**Woman:** _(hesitantly)_ Yes, stranger? How can I help?  
 **Man:** I come looking for Mary, wife to the carpenter… Joseph? Do you know her?  
 **Woman:** I, um… what’s your desire?  
 **Man:** My ‘desire’ _(impatient)_ is to speak to Mary. Is she home?  
 **Woman:** What do you need from her?  
 **Man:** _(cross)_ I don’t have all the time in the world, human. I already told you that I need to speak to her; only so much that the Almighty from on high has a great gift for her. Now let me in and call Mary here. _(wants to push past her)_  
 **Woman:** _(obstructs his way)_ Look, stranger, if you were a simple pilgrim looking for a meal or a place to rest, I would have gladly let you in and had you nourished, because my husband and I believe in sharing and helping. We are simple, humble people, but we believe that it is right to extend helping hands wherever we can. But since you disregard such simple humanity and courtesy, I have to ask you to leave my husband’s house and never knock again.  
 **Man:** _(outraged)_ Human, do you even know who…  
 **Woman:** _(throws the door shut)_

_Shaking her head, the woman returns to work. She has barely picked up the broom again as a dazzling flash of light fills the room, makes her stumble, clench her eyes and shield them with her arm, and gasp for air; she grabs the broom to herself as if trying to defend herself with it. Upon opening her eyes again, she sees herself directly opposite_

**Man:** _(he hovers in the room, barefoot, now surrounded by glistening white light like a flame, the robe fluttering around him, the hint of three pairs of wings on his back, a scowling grin on his face)_ You mortals… you just don’t want to listen until you are forced to.  
 **Woman:** I… what…  
 **Man:** You didn’t want to listen to me as I tried it the nice way. Now be quiet and get me your mistress. I have to talk to her.  
 **Woman:** I… I am Mary, Joseph’s wife. I…  
 **Man:** _(combing through his hair, exasperated)_ And why didn’t you just tell me right away? We could have saved ourselves so much stress and hassle.  
 **Mary:** Has… my time already come?  
 **Man:** _(ignores her; clears his throat and solemnly raises his arms; when he speaks up again, he seems to speak with at least three voices, his words echo infinitely)_ Do not be afraid, Virgin Mary. I am the Archangel Gabriel and I bring you joyful tidings from the Almighty.  
 **Mary:** Joyful… tidings…?  
 **Gabriel:** _(lowers her arms and glares at her)_ Let – me – finish. _(Raises her arms again and gazes off into the distance)_ The good Lord smiles on you. You have received great mercy, Virgin Mary. You shall give birth to a son…  
 **Mary:** Impossible!  
 **Gabriel:** _(hisses)_ What – is – it – now?  
 **Mary:** Joseph and I are barely married. I cannot have a child now; do you even imagine how bad that would be for our reputation?  
 **Gabriel:** And what…  
 **Mary:** Nobody would ever hire him anymore if he had to raise an illegitimate child! Do you have any concept of a social stigma?  
 **Gabriel:** Human. Do you realize what I came to tell you?  
 **Mary:** Yes, perfectly, but I don’t think you do.  
 **Gabriel:** You shall give birth to the Saviour, woman, the Messiah. Through you, this Earth will… hopefully… be a better place, with more light, more cleanliness, more order and goodness.  
 **Mary:** Apart from that, he hasn’t been sharing my bed yet! We are only barely married and we are good, God-fearing people!  
 **Gabriel:** _(laboriously keeping his calm)_ That’s why you were chosen.  
 **Mary:** I will not let you push this sacrilege on me! Do you even know what that means for us? For me? How am I supposed to explain this to my husband?  
 **Gabriel:** That one’s none of my business. All that concerns me is _(produces a clipboard, reads out and ticks off points as he goes)_ that you know that the Holy Spirit has come over you and that you shall give birth to a son and name him Jesus. That’s where my job ends.  
 **Mary:** _(aggravated)_ But…  
 **Gabriel:** _(rolling eyes)_ No buts. That is the word of the Almighty – it is written, and it will happen, no matter what such a mere speck of dust on the surface of infinity as you think of it. Now if you would excuse me, I've already wasted more than enough time here…

_With a shake of the head, he vanishes; the holy light winks out and Mary is left alone in her room.  
We follow Gabriel; Outside, a lifeless, empty desert landscape through which he trudges, visibly angry. The wings and otherworldly light have disappeared. His fists are clenched at his sides and he glances up at the sky from time to time._

**Gabriel:** I really have to apply for a job that has less to do with people. Maybe at some point Michael will be willing to give up her leadership position…

_After some time, some rope ladders that are barely tangible and that end in nothing become visible; angels climb them up and down, and those who come to the ground and stumble past Gabriel into the world are quite green in the face. They usually greet him with a lisp and unsteady voices; he rarely greets back. Gabriel waits for a ladder to be completely free and grumbles while he starts ascending._

**Gabriel:** _(climbing)_ We also have to change this here at some point, we can’t use these ladders forever. I wonder if it will eventually be possible to build a solid staircase… maybe even one that moves so that you don’t have to walk the whole god-loved path… _(exit upwards)_


End file.
